The Indentured Servant, 1858 Ch. 02

My name is Cassandra Harper of Small Creek, Wisconsin. Small Creek is a small northwestern area of the state. It was densely wooded country and becoming very crowded now because of the ever growing demand for lumber in the rest of the country.

I lived in a small cabin with my Momma, and two younger brothers or rather, I did until yesterday when I left my home and my momma to earn money as a house maid. However, far into my journey to my new vocation, I learned I was not to be a house maid after all but a kitchen hand and wash girl in a lumber camp filled with men. I was still grappling with my newly understood circumstances when my new step father, Mr. Hernsh attached the reins to his gray, stocky work horse and we continued onwards in the rickety wagon to the camp and my new life.

I could smell the camp before I saw any trace of its existence. I smelled wood burning and food cooking. I also smelled something else that I could not identify but came to learn it was the smell of a large number of men living and sleeping in close proximity to each other in one space; it was the smell of perspiration and well worn clothes in need of laundering and pipes and cigars, leather boots and mud. Then I could hear the camp, all the voices blended into one large noise that got louder as I got closer to camp.

I could also hear the roar of water running over rocks, we must be near a river, though which one, I could not say.

My eyes widened as the camp suddenly revealed itself. It was so much larger than I had envisioned, there must be hundreds of men here! Tents and very crude cabin-like structures were in one area, a few better made cabins were in another area, the areas were separated by a river of mud.

Mr. Hernsh did not attempt to drive his wagon onto the mud roadway, even he knew his wheels would sink in and render him impossibly stuck. He clipped his reins and we both hopped down and walked, and carefully stepped between the mud puddles and debris.

Men stopped and stared in my direction. I felt like they could see right through me, knew why I was here and what I allowed Mr. Hernsh to do to me last night and again this morning. I allowed him to teach me how to handle all these camp men. How exactly they would handle me, I did not know.

We came upon a crude cabin where a great many men seemed to be just standing around, some talking to friends, others just smoking their pipes.

"Where's the wash woman?" Mr. Hernsh asked a lone man.

He hooked his thumb to indicate inside the cabin but he didn't bother to talk. We walked inside, even though it was a bright sunny day outside, it was dark inside the cabin.

There were several roughly built long tables and benches where several men sat and ate brown stew. There was only one woman in the cabin, she was a medium sized lady of about thirty five years old. She had very black hair and a large bosom. She looked formidable, her face was practically set in a snarl, her black eyes were hard.

She looked at Mr. Hernsh with a some recognition and then me. She did not seem happy to see me.

"This your girl?" She asked. Her voice sounded loud and angry.

Even Mr. Hernsh seemed cowered in her presence. "Yes, Ma'am" he politely answered holding his own hat in his hands.

She looked me over, her snarl only becoming more prominent. "You said she was an older girl!" She barked at Mr. Hernsh.

"She's eighteen, like I told you. She's small but after some hard work, she'll get sturdy, I believe," he promised.

The black haired lady continued to look at me, doubtful and not happy.

"Hmph!" Was her only reply. She turned and went back to serving brown stew to other men who recently sat down at a long table.

Mr. Hernsh and I stood there rather awkwardly. She didn't seem to want me, so, what now? I wondered. Would we just turn around and go back home to Momma?

After awhile Mr. Hernsh became impatient, he spoke over to the women, "You want her or no?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'll take her. What choice do I have?" She answered.

I watched as she stood facing a corner and carefully extracted a pocket hanging inside her skirts. It was her money purse. She gave Mr. Hernsh money and he happily put it into his coat interior pocket. I didn't understand what was happening here, I was told I would be earning wages and I would bring my earnings back to Momma. Why was Hernsh getting paid?

Very quickly, Mr. Hernsh said good bye to me, he told me to listen to Miss. Nell here, she was my owner now. Owner? I wondered feeling confused.

"All right, don't just stand there like a post! Start washing these bowls!" Miss. Nell hollered at me.

I pulled my long work apron from my bag and got to work. The work, I realized was never ending. I worked from before sun up to past sun down every day. I washed dishes and spoons constantly, hauled in fresh water and sacks of onions and potatoes, and served hungry men stew day after day, made loaves of bread, and when there was a break in the day, I went out to the back of the cabin and helped two Indian girls wash laundry. I slept on a mat on the floor near the fireplace but it was hard to fall asleep, my entire body ached terribly and the skin on my hands was rubbed raw and red.

When I finally did drift to sleep I dreamed of never ending piles of dirty clothes, stacks of dirty bowls, brown stew, and mud.

One thing that did not happen was what Mr. Hernsh taught me on the night we camped in his small wagon. No lumberjack came to me demanding I passively lay on my back and spread my legs open for him to push his cock inside my soft cunny. I really did start to wonder if he tricked me. Did he make all that up and nice people don't actually do such rude things to each other? I felt angry that I had been tricked.

Every man, either young, old, or somewhere in between, was nice and respectful towards me. No one ever grabbed or pinched me. Some of the younger gents seemed to flirt with me but Miss. Nell had already told me, don't flirt with the men. She didn't even want me to smile at them which was sometimes difficult as they often joked and told each other funny stories about their lives and their kin back home.

Even though I was constantly surrounded by people each and every day, I felt very lonely and homesick for my Momma and brothers. I wondered where they were and what they were doing right now. My only friends were the two Indian washer girls who worked in the back. They were not allowed to be inside the cabin due to their Indian-ness even though they were both kind, mild mannered young ladies. Sue was about my age, and her sister Fran was two years younger. Those weren't their real names but Miss. Nell hated any kind of Indian name so that's what she called them. Miss. Nell told me she needed a white girl to help serve the lumberjacks because white men don't want to served food from "dirty Indians". I also learned, I was not earning any wages; I was an indentured servant for the next seven years, Miss. Nell paid Mr. Hernsh a good sum of money for my servitude. I would probably have been very angry about this if I had time in the day to consider it but Miss. Nell kept me so busy, I barely had a minute to think about anything, including my unfortunate circumstances.

The nice thing about winter was the mud froze so my boots no longer sank in it and many of the lumberjacks returned to their homes for the winter months making my work marginally lighter. The bad thing was the cold. Even though I slept as close to the fire as I could, I was never not cold. I even slept wearing my boots in effort to stay warm.

Miss. Nell slept on a cot, also in the cabin. One cold night, in the wee small hours, I awoke to unfamiliar noises. I looked up and in the dim light from the fire, I saw Miss. Nell kissing passionately on the mouth with a lumberjack who I recognized as Ed Lawton. Both were sitting up on her cot with their arms in a tight embrace. They weren't just kissing, as they were holding onto one another, their bodies seemed to slowly rock back and forth as if they were trying to mimic the dance of the flames in the fireplace.

Despite the cold, their skin shone like they were covered in a fine sweat.

Nell's big breasts were exposed. She had large, dark nipples and round, firm breasts. I could smell their hot bodies as they rubbed against each other, a musky, warm smell. Ed Lawton was grunting like he was trying to quickly climb a steep hill. Miss. Nell screeched in long hisses and panted. He pushed her down so she lay flat on her back. I saw her legs wrap around his bare hips as he pushed down onto her body. They moaned and grunted together. Suddenly, Mr. Lawton, who had always been a polite gentleman, growled in a low voice, "You want it Nell? You want my prick deep in you?"

Nell was having trouble, it seemed, catching her breath but she insisted, in ragged, panting gasps, "Yes", she wanted him to "Ram his big prick inside her."

He grunted loudly and began to move his naked ass quickly, up and down. Nell squealed out, both her hands clutching his ass cheeks. Then they were done and laid together, perhaps still joined, for a minute before Mr. Lawton groaned one more time and lifted his body off Nell's. He began putting his pants on and spotted me watching him. I immediately shut my eyes and turned away from them trying to hide under my blanket.

"Ah, Nell, looks like we woke your girl," Mr. Lawton said and sounded embarrassed.

"Go to sleep, girl! Mind your business!" Nell called out.

The next day, as I went about my chores, my mind kept going back to the dimly lit images in my mind of Nell and Mr. Lawton together.

I realized Mr. Hernsh had not made the whole rude thing up, after all. This was something other people did as well. I was embarrassed whenever I crossed paths with Nell which was often, as we worked together in the small cabin. Nell, on her part did not seem embarrassed at all. She barked out orders and yelled at me to be quick girl just like any other day. When Mr. Lawton came in to eat his mid day meal, he had the decency of not making eye contact with me.

I recalled how Mr. Hernsh told me it would be expected of me to lay with the camp men. But that hadn't happened. The first few days in the camp I worried needlessly that at any moment a lumberjack would tell me to lift my skirt and spread my legs exposing my most private and sensitive place for them to do as they pleased with their fingers or their cock.

The only thing Miss. Nell told me about the men was don't flirt with them, don't smile at 'em either, don't give them no ideas. She told me, don't have private conversations with any man and only do my personal business in the outhouse, never in the woods, where some man could come up on me with my ass exposed. I also was not allowed to leave the cabin after dark except to go to the outhouse. "Some of these boys are wild," she warned me after telling me these rules. Even in her hard, unfriendly way, I was relieved, like she was trying to protect me from the Mr. Hernshs of the world.

But now I wasn't too sure. Nell herself bred with Mr. Lawton. Did she expect me to breed with a man too, like how Mr. Hernsh told me? If the answer was yes, then when and with who?

There were a few younger, handsome lads who were very nice to me and always smiling my way. One young man, David, who had dark brown hair and a handsome face, stopped and helped me carry the large, heavy Dutch oven from the hearth one day. Nell didn't seem all too pleased but held her tongue as I thanked him for his assistance. I suppose if I had to choose a man to breed with, I would choose David but I was pretty sure if anyone was choosing, it wouldn't be me.

Sometimes at night, as I tried to fall asleep on the hard wood floor of the cabin, I'd think about David and wonder what it'd feel like if he kissed me. I tried to imagine it but my mind would only return to the star filled night when I laid under Mr. Hernsh's large body and he pushed himself so deep inside my loins, I thought I'd split in two. The experience wasn't all bad, I admit, I liked when he kissed my neck. When his wet lips wrapped around my nipples and sucked, I was surprised at first but then it did feel nice. Now I felt a feeling, like an ache between my legs and I put my hand on my cunny. I squeezed it like Mr. Hernsh had done to me but it didn't help, if anything, it only increased my ache. I finally fell asleep in a fretful, uncomfortable slumber.

As the winter went on, more and more men left camp to go back home. They had earned what they needed to until Spring and now they wanted to be with family on Christmas. My work load got even lighter which was good because the days were so short now. The snow drifts piled up around the cabin and the wind whipped around us. I wondered if my brothers were home now with Momma or would they stayed on the work farm over Christmas, too. Last Christmas, we didn't have much in the way of gifts or fancy food but we had each other. This year, I didn't even have that. Admittedly, I was feeling very was sorry for myself.

It became a somewhat regular occurrence for Mr. Lawton to visit Nell in the middle of the night. They didn't make much effort to conceal their activities. I wondered why they didn't marry. Mr. Lawton was sort of handsome, he had light brown hair and kind brown eyes. His beard covered most of his lower face though. I tried to avert my eyes from their direction and sleep but some nights I did see a glimpse here or there of their love making. What struck me was how little affection they showed one another during the daytime but at night, on Nell's narrow cot, they seemed to devour each other in a fit of passion. They both uttered dirty, rude thing to each other, too, like Nell urged him to give her his big cock. I tried not to listen.

As a rule, I tried not to talk much to Nell except when I absolutely had to because she never seemed like talking was something that would ease her temper. Even a pleasant greeting from me seemed to irritate her so I just kept my conversation in my own head.

Yet, I was bothered by the notion that any day now, I'd be told I had to give my body to some man. I suppose it would be inevitable, I just wanted to know when about this would occur. I got up the courage to ask Nell one evening as we both sat quietly by the hearth, trying to stay warm.

"What in God's great world are you talking about, girl?" She asked, clearly annoyed that I interrupted her reverie.

I tried to explain but there was no way I could think of on explaining these thoughts in a polite manner. Nell just stared at me, eyes narrowed and mouth set in a disapproving grimace.

"Well, what I mean is just... Well, Mr. Hernsh told me I'd have to... When I'm living at the lumber camp, I'd have to be with men," I told her as I struggled to get the words out of my mouth.

"Yeah? What did you think? Of course you'd be with men at a lumber camp? Did you think it'd only be ladies here?" She asked, as if she considered me the dumbest person she ever had the misfortune of speaking with.

"No, what I mean, Um, I mean be with men. That my owner would have me be with a man," I tried to explain better.

She understood, I could tell just from her expression changing.

"He told you that?" She asked. This was the first time Nell was not angry, irritated, or annoyed with me or something I said. She genuinely sounded surprised and maybe a little concerned as well.

"Yes, he did," I admitted. I'm not sure why but her surprise and concern made me feel ashamed for allowing him to lay with me. I didn't have to, after all, and what's worse, I enjoyed some elements of it.

"I don't know why he said that to you. All these men have either wives, sweethearts, or their Mommas to go home to, they don't want some one night Sally". She seemed to remember something, "Some do, I guess," she looked ruefully at me for a second, as if to imply: "Good thing for me!"

I blushed remembering the nights with Mr. Lawson. Although, his visits seemed to be fewer and fewer lately. He still didn't look at my eyes when he needed to speak to me and he only spoke when he absolutely had to.

"Girl, I have no interest in whoring you out," Nell told me. "Then what would I have? A girl with a bunch of her own young-in's to feed. But to be truthful, this camp may be moving on soon and we would be moving on with them. Each camp is different. Different men, different bosses for the men. This has been one of the better ones".

I considered everything she just told me. Relief that she wouldn't, as she put it, whore me out. Anger at Hernsh for convincing me otherwise. The thought of moving to a new camp. With new and different men.

Over time, another disturbing idea came to light, Nell could sell me. She held my servitude contract but if she no longer had any use for me she could, in fact, sell my contract to another owner. Another owner who could do whatever they desired with me. I learned this in a most unfortunate way. David, asked Nell for my hand in marriage, he mistook her for my relative and guardian. She quickly corrected him and said sure, if he was willing to buy out the servant contract she held on me or wait six and a half more years until it was up. David, of course, could and would do neither and eventually he left the camp altogether.

I was sad and disappointed to see David go but soon my thoughts were consumed with a very different young man named Mes-q.